About the Author:
A graduate of Western Washington University and Seattle native, Dan Raley is a magazine writer for Boeing after serving as a writer and editor for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Skagit Valley Herald and East Washingtonian newspapers, and as a digital news editor for Microsoft s MSN.com. Raley s work has appeared in most major newspapers in the country through New York Times syndication and in Athlon pro football, college football and college basketball magazines, Golf Magazine, Golf World, Golf Journal, Travel & Leisure, The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, MLB.com and ESPN.com. In his career he has written an estimated 10,000 stories. Raley resides in North Bend, Wash. In addition to How Seattle Became a Big-League Sports Town: From George Wilson to Russell Wilson, Dan authored the books Pitchers of Beer (the history of the Seattle Rainiers), Tideflats to Tomorrow: The History of Seattle s Sodo, and The Brandon Roy Story.
Review:
If you are a reader who thinks this book requires a minimum age of 50 or so to appreciate it, you are a silly person. Put the book/tablet down and move on. For those under 30, new to town, don t know many outside your work station and don t quite get why 700,000 people stood in downtown Seattle for hours on a 15-degree day to blow kisses at large men in slow-moving jitneys, this book is for you. That s because in 10 or 15 years, you will become the political, business, social and cultural leaders of this mossy, misty metro, so you better get to know it. Start here. With this book. It s fun. And wise. It allows you to graduate to the gnarlier matters of civic history, as in how people in Seattle can t get from here to there without at least a brief detour through traffic hell, although the detour more recently has become a destination. Until the recent magnum success of the Seahawks, the sports profile of Seattle and Washington was mostly wretched. From a standpoint of won-loss records and championships won, that was relatively true. But a look past the bleakness reveals a vivid sports landscape of majestic achievers of national and international renown, hilarious schemes by dubious promoters, and complex men and women who knew success and failure, often several times over. The cool thing is that the people here are described honestly, independent of the vanity or profit needs of the sports, schools and media outlets who want to make a buck off sanitized versions of our sports heroes. Dan Raley would have it no other way. He enjoys sports, playing, watching, describing. But he enjoys just a little more the telling of a good, honest story. Those chronicled here have shaped the Seattle sports narrative, mostly for good and some for ill, often with controversy and not a little regret. To those new to the area or the topic, the real stories will be as surprising as they are compelling, and worthy to know in order to appreciate what is now. Raley has lived among them and searched deep for those who preceded him. Raley grew up in Seattle with many of the people chronicled here, worked alongside many more as a journalist, and now as a senior eminence, can reflect upon the feats, deeds and missteps of a century with the learned eye of a historian and the compassion of a pal. Raley and I were around town for the final days of Royal Brougham, the legendary Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports editor and columnist, who began his career as a reporter on the combustible Seattle waterfront before World War I (that s one, not two) and died watching the Seahawks in the Kingdome. Brougham had a pet name for Seattle: Dad Yesler s little sawmill town. Even Brougham was too young to remember Henry Yesler s wood-products start-up at the city s 1852 founding. But Brougham knew the value of metaphorical connection to the civic roots: You can t know where you are until you know where you ve been. Raley shares Brougham s understanding. Fortunately, he s a helluva lot better writer. Now, as big data does for the economy and profile what a big saw once did, legions of new workers come from around the world to Amazon, Microsoft and other tech companies to create Seattle s latest boom. In their spare time, they have become part of the 12s, the seismic disturbers who follow the Seahawks. They make Sounders FC one of the world s most well-supported soccer clubs. They pay for and shake new Husky Stadium, college football s most spectacular place, and celebrate the return to baseball contention of the Seattle Mariners, as well as the return of big-time pro golf with the U.S. Open at Tacoma s Chambers Bay in June 2015. The newcomers to Seattle sports can now catch up with long-timers in one place. Here. Raley artfully conveys what was, so they can savor what is. --Art Thiel former Seattle P-I writer
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